Tag Archives: chris christie

Yeah, every week is a crazy one in the rough and tumble world of politics. This is a roundup of some of the fun pundits had watching their favorite sport. You can read that here.

And some bonus content readers here:

Near Fails:

1. Sarah for Senate?

If Sarah had stayed here, comedy writers all over the country would have been denied her awesomeness. Wasilla City Hall in Alaska (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Conservative columnist Bill Crystal knows what Sarah Palin needs to do to get her gravitas back (did she ever have any?). She needs to run for the Senate! Yes, he thinks she should run against incumbent Democrat Mark Begich in Alaska next year.

Now, I would like to see a Palin Senate campaign because it would be hilarious. I write satire and it would be a gift from the heavens for me (oh, Christine “I am not a witch” O’Donnell, please run for something else, we miss you!) but I don’t think she has the stomach for real policy. Quitting her day job ten minutes after she lost in 2008 made that pretty clear. She doesn’t want to make a difference, she wants to make money.

When Liz Cheney moved back to Wyoming to run for the Senate (challenging another non-liberal, Mike Enzi) she did what she thought she should do — get a fishing license. The problem? You need to be in the area at least a year to get one legally so she lied on her application. She paid a fine but blamed the clerk for making the mistake (her application said she had been a Wyoming resident for 10 years). Enzi is ahead in the polls and apparently, Wyoming residents take this kind of thing seriously. Take home message: don’t lie on your permit applications. Read more here.

WIN!

It’s not all bad. This isn’t a political story but a win nonetheless. Antoinette Tuff’s quick thinking saved the day when a gunman entered a school in Georgia. This could have been Sandy Hook all over again but it wasn’t.

11/16/2012 11:35 AM Alyson Durden – With negotiations to prevent the country from hurtling over the “fiscal cliff” predicted to fail, and fresh off their efforts to help victims of Hurricane Sandy, the cast of the MTV show “Jersey Shore” have announced a “road trip” to Washington, DC to get the President and Congress to work together. The group hopes to get leaders from both chambers and parties to meet with President Obama and Vice President Biden together for “one hell of a party” to hammer out a compromise that will prevent the sequestration, but also “bring some fun to the process.”

“If anyone knows how to bring people together, it’s us,” said Vinny Guadagnino. “We have navigated six seasons of living in close quarters with each other, and we know what it takes to force people to work things out. I personally got the house to look at art AND history in Italy. As a group we negotiated truces between Ronny and Sammi, Snook and the Situation, the Situation and the guys next door — well, Mike has forced us all to become master negotiators. He can get himself in a fight when he is by himself — does everyone remember when he knocked himself unconscious? I sure do.”

Paul “Pauly D” DelVecchio told us, “Now that Mike quit drinking he has really become interested in fiscal policy, I never knew he had such interests, but he was really the driving force behind our efforts. I didn’t realize how serious this was until he sat me down one night after we’d been partying at Karma and said, ‘If we allow the budget cuts and tax hikes from the Budget Control Act of 2011 to go through, I may go back to doing drugs and drinking, just to help the economy. The housing market has just begun to recover, we cannot allow this.'”

Lawmakers on both sides were eager to meet with the reality stars. Speaker John Boehner was overheard saying, “I cannot believe I get to meet JWow! This job rocks!” And Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz tweeted, “The Jersey Shore summit will be the best meeting ever!” And the White House was not immune to the charms of the pride of Seaside Heights either, as staffers told PTP, “This is going to be awesome. And we were worried these talks would be boring. That Deema is a ‘bast in a glass.’ I hope she brings some of that!”

On a serious note, towns like Seaside Heights could really use your help. Here are some articles about what the “Jersey Shore” cast is doing to help and if you want to help, please check this out: https://www.facebook.com/restoretheshoreprojects

Herman Cain, aka the pizza magnate and current flavor of the month in the GOP POTUS candidate, has made some interesting choices and statements. He seems to think running for president and selling books are not mutually exclusive activities.

To give him his due, the Cain campaign has bought a lot of his books so he is definitely selling a ton while running for president. And Governor Sarah Palin would tell you her VP run and the speculation about her possible 2012 run did not hurt her book sales but just because you can do something, does not mean you should.

This is not an anti-capitalist view I am trying to promote. Sell as many books as want but it seems a little unseemly to use a presidential run to do it. Any presidential campaign is really a multi-month (or year) job interview for the most (or one of) important jobs in the country. Nothing a candidate does will really prepare anyone to be president (and it’s not supposed to, you should be qualified to run before you make that decision) but it does give the nation a chance to get to know the would be candidates. This is not a time to bring anything but your A game. When you think about that, is this really the time to split your energy between running and doing anything else?

Running for president is hard. Not has hard as being the leader of the free world but it is hard. That’s why I criticized Cenk Uygar when he said that Mike Huckabee was “too fat and happy” to run. I have a lot of respect for people who admit that it takes a lot of time and energy to run and there are no guarantees. Good for you, Governor.

Governor Rick Perry has learned how much harder it is to run for national office (I believe he thought that his track record in Texas would prepare him better for the presidential race) than any state-wide. That’s one of the reasons he has said he may not take part in upcoming debates (not that his underwhelming performances have had any role, seriously, if you cannot stay awake past 8:00 pm, how can you be president?).

Congresswomen Michele Bachmann has learned this, too. Maybe that’s why her New Hampshire staff all quit in a huff. Maybe she thought she could make up facts as she goes along in this campaign the way she does every other time she opens her mouth but it doesn’t seem to be working as well as she thought.

So we come back to the current front-runner (in national polls, though, not the state polls, where it matters more), Herman Cain. It is worth noting that the title of this post could also refer to Godfather’s pizza. With all due respect to Chicago deep dish pizza lovers, you can theoretically make pizza outside of New York, but why would you?

Full disclosure, which is pretty obvious to anyone who has met me or read what I write, I am a liberal Democrat and have every intention of voting for President Obama. Having said that, I think having two robust parties and a vigorous discussion about where we want the country to go, is in everyone’s best interest. I was really impressed when Governor Chris Christie said that he believes in “small government, lower taxes and less regulation,” not because I agree with ANY of that, in fact I do NOT, but that’s where our conversation should be.

Herman Cain is not advancing our political discourse at all. His economic plan (the “9/9/9” or “9/0/9”) would be disastrous. His ignorance of foreign policy is scary. It is his lack of interest in running for office, while he runs, that bothers me the most. With little or no campaign infrastructure, few details on his policy proposals and a general laissez-faire attitude towards the process, I am left with the thought that if he doesn’t care about his campaign, why should anyone?